THREE apprentices are set to be taken on by a bakery business in Nottingham.

Butt Foods plans to recruit one apprentice in administration and two to take up bakery technician roles in the next few months.

Based at the city's Lenton Industrial Estate, the company bakes more than 60 million naan and flat breads, rolls, fruit bread and canape bases for the food service industry every year.

It employs 50 people – after taking on ten new employees during the first four months of this year – and is growing at a rate of 30 per cent every six months.

Managing director David Williams said: "As a small business, we think it's important to put something back into the community.

"We've got an ageing workforce and an apprenticeship scheme is a great way to address that.

"We also need to take on apprentices because it's going to get increasingly difficult to recruit – there's more demand for staff now and people are moving a little bit more freely."

The company is keen to support the Post's Get Notts Working campaign, which aims to identify 300 apprenticeship positions in Nottinghamshire.

Mr Williams said: "Around 170,000 people in this industry across the UK are due to retire by 2020, but we have no interest from younger people to come into this industry.

"If we don't solve that problem, we are not going to have enough workers for our industry – and that would be catastrophic.

"We've got to get schoolchildren to understand that there are a lot of skilled jobs available in factories, including sales, technical and product development. A lot of the boring factory jobs have been automated out.

"As the financial services industry was falling apart and shedding jobs, we continued to be a very robust sector because people always need to eat.

"They might change what they eat and they might eat out a bit less but they are still eating, so I can still sell products."

D2N2, the Local Enterprise Partnership for Nottinghamshire, has identified the food and drink industry as one of eight key areas which will drive the area's economy.

David Ralph, chief executive of D2N2, said: "There is such a range of job opportunities in the food and drink sector, from artisan food-making to scientific research into new product development.

"Businesses regularly say they want to train up their staff, so apprenticeships are very much the way forward for any young person looking to develop a great career in this sector."

Is your company taking on more apprentices? Let us know at newsdesk@nottinghampost.com.